2014 UK Championship - O'Sullivan and Trump progress into semis

Rocket in semis

It all started on November 25^th and believe it or not we are down to just four players who will cross their cues into Saturday semi-finals, here at the Barbican Centre from York: Ronnie O'Sullivan, Stuart Bingham, Judd Trump and Stephen Maguire.

The birthday-boy (aka. Ronnie) faced Scotland's Anthony McGill in his quest for a place in the semis, which proved to be quite a test for the Rocket, as he himself admitted after the match.

Ants was breaking the ice with runs of 31, 43 and 55 to fly at 2-0 up against the man who has conquered no less than five world championship titles, but as the interval was coming Ronnie managed to draw level with breaks of 38, 39 and 98.

McGill made his opponent work for the win

15 minutes later, the players re-entered into the arena to resume their play, O'Sullivan making a beautiful clearance of 125 points to go in the lead for the first time, 3-2, but McGill pushed him into a very tense 6^th frame until the scoreline was yet again a perfect draw.

Anthony had a great chance to capture another frame, but broke down on 41, this allowing Ronnie to hit a 57 before missing the black. In the end though, the Scotsman didn't manage to take full advantage and missed a yellow, thus Ronnie getting back in the driving seat, at 4-3.

Another huge chance slipped through his fingers when he left a green hanging between the jaws of the pocket in frame eight, but a great 103 break made during frame 9^th seemed to erase all that.

Still, O'Sullivan was one away from victory, a break of 97 helping him book a seat in the semis.

Dott's going home

The Rocket congratulated his opponent and stated that McGill is a wonderful person and a player with a great career ahead of him, even reminding him a bit of Steve Davis. I reckon he wasn't just referring at his hair colour.

A more dramatic match was taking place "next door" between Graeme Dott and Stuart Bingham, a match that had some strange resemblance with the snooker encounter between Dott and Robertson earlier in the tournament. Sadly for Dott though, the result was different.

Bingham's comeback secures him a place in the semis

The Scotsman proved to be in quite a great form and practically flew at 4-1 by using breaks like 68, 68 and 92, but it all turned against him in frame six when he had a massive kick on 34 and Stuart won his second frame of the match.

From that point on it was just a matter of time before Bingham completed his comeback with breaks of 108, 65 and 64, to which he added a brilliant 103 during the last frame to sign his victory by 6-5.
A gutted Dott declared that “The snooker Gods didn’t want me to win”, in the press conference after the suffered defeat.

Trump is amongst the fav to win the title

The evening session saw Mark Davis taking on Judd Trump in a match that ended on a 6-1 scoreline, in favour of the Bristol-man.

Just as the match started Davis was in amongst the balls making some pretty nice breaks, a 48 in the first frame (stopped by a missed black) and a 50 in the second (lost position), to which Trump responded with a 72 and 59 to go 2-0 up.

Although Davis managed to win the third one, it was a one-way street for the 2011 UK champion, as he fired in breaks of 59 and 65 to go 5-1 up.

One last chance it was handed to Davis, as Trump missed a red on 64, but sadly enough he incredibly missed the last black and left it on for Trump to seal victory.

A bit angry at times, but Maguire advances into semis

The last of the four musketeers, Stephen Maguire met with Marco Fu in a match that kept us awake late in the night.

Stephen proved to be the better player as he immediately went 4-1 up (breaks of 32, 95, 36, 66 and 120 included in the offer), but Fu didn't give up.

He won his 2^nd frame of the match with a nicely built 67 break, followed by runs of 49 and 35 to trail 4-3, while Maguire won a very tense snooker affair which was putting him with one foot in the semis.

Fu prolonged the suspense as he grabbed a scrappy 9^th frame, but in the end Maguire clinched the much-desired last frame with just a top break of 20, for a final 6-4 scoreline.

Semis order of play:

Stuart Bingham v. Ronnie O'Sullivan
Judd Trump v. Stephen Maguire